How 3D Can Make Your Manufacturing Business More Competitive

A report by PwC and the Manufacturing Institute report published this month, “3D printing comes of age in U.S. industrial manufacturing,” outlines 7 ways 3D printing is disrupting U.S. manufacturing, drawn from the responses of 120 U.S. manufacturing professionals in PwC’s 2016 Disruptive Manufacturing Innovations Survey. Here are several findings which point to a majority tipping point, and we feel it’s critical that your business is prepared for the already-started shift. 71.1% of U.S. manufacturers are applying 3D printing technology in some way, up slightly from 67% in 2014. A higher percentage of manufacturers, compared to two years ago, are using it for prototyping (31.4%), the production of end-products (6.6%)—or both (13.2%). More manufacturers (42%) now believe that, in the next 3-5 years, 3D printing will likely be primarily used for high-volume production, up slightly from two years ago, when 38% felt that that was the case. Just over half of U.S. manufacturers (52.8%) believe that, in the next 3-5 years, 3D printing will be more useful in producing aftermarket parts or products, slightly down from 57% two years ago. 64% of manufacturers expect that, in the next 3-5 years, 3D printing will be used to produce older, obsolete parts—down slightly from 2014, when 70% believed that would be the case. These older parts will alleviate the need to warehouse original parts and thereby cut costs. 56% believe that more than half of their peers in the U.S. will adopt 3D printing in the next 3-5 years The most commonly cited barriers to adopting 3D printing among manufacturers are cost and lack of talent and current expertise (41.3% and 42.1% respectively), followed by uncertainty of quality of the final product (33.1%) and printer speed (25.6%). When asked which aspects of their business 3D printing could potentially disrupt, if or […]